Theta Waves Book 1 (Episodes 1-3) (23 page)

She might have thought about Ezekiel as her lids closed, in fact, she must have thought about him because his face swam before her eyes even beneath the closed lids. He didn't mock her in the visions; she wished he would. Because the look of pain on his face was far worse to bear.

She came to in an elegant room papered in burgundy with plaster crown moldings stretching from corner to corner. For a second her chest relaxed and allowed a brief inhale. Then she realized her hands were manacled above her, that when she did pull in one sweet draft of air her ribs shrieked in agony. She winced because she couldn't breathe enough to cry.

Some kind of buzzing in her ears prodded for her attention like a toe tapping impatiently. She swayed away from it. Bad enough she was hanging here by her wrists, struggling to make each breath, should she have to put up with an incessant noise too?

"Leave me alone," she said to the buzzing. "I don't know anything."

The buzzing turned to the whine of a thousand mosquitoes humming about her head. Instinct made her try to swat them away and the sting of metal chafing her raw flesh made her cry out. The effort of making sound sent a lick of fire up her throat. But at least the sound went away. She let her head hang in relief.

"Theda?"

Her name. That voice. She tried to lift her head, aiming her gaze to her left.

"Thank fuck," he said. Ezekiel's voice, but that thing hanging next to her, suspended by his wrists from a long steel bar attached to the ceiling, that couldn't be Ezekiel. The face was too swollen. The lips too bloody. "Are you okay?" He said.

She tried to answer but found the muscles in her jaw were too sore to form words. She started to shake her head and thought better of that too. She didn't think she'd ever be okay again. But even if she could say the words, she couldn't admit them to him. If it was Ezekiel, She didn't want him to think that all he'd endured for her sake had been for nothing.

"The beast is coming," he said, and each word exited his mouth as though it took a great deal of effort. As though he was working his tongue around a mouthful of marbles. "Daniel will give you a smear. Use it if you have to."

It was Ezekiel. And he wanted to give her a smear. They must be in some truly deep shit if that was the case. She thought she heard laughter and realized it was coming from deep within her chest.

"Theda?" He prodded again. "
Minou
."

She didn't want him to call her that. Just the sound of that word made her chest burn, force the memory of his hands on her skin, how the taste of his mouth managed to replace her cravings for godspit. She tried again to look at him, fighting against the pain in her neck as she craned her head sideways, thinking to tell him not to speak her anymore. She didn't think she could bear it.

"The mayor," he croaked. "What you saw, what you gave me," a swollen tongue stabbed at his bloody bottom lip. "It changed me."

Changed him. What did that mean? Was he no longer the pale rider, the man destined to reap blood and death as though it were an autumn harvest? She thought of the beast's son. How young he had been when she'd given him his vision. College-age. She'd had no idea who he was at the time, only that he came to her after the Holocaust, offering her enough money to eat for the day. She'd not told anyone about the contents of that revision. She thought he'd walked away thinking it was just the magic of her ride. She had no idea it had changed him until Ezekiel had come searching for her, had set in motion her own eventual demise. And now this man who had tried to protect her with his own body, a man who belonged to an order of ruthless soldiers, he was admitting the same thing to her.

Religion mongering. Indeed, that's what she'd been doing all along although she had no idea. Something inside her squeezed.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save you," he said and she heard regret in his voice, remorse and something else. Failure?

She had to work at forming words: each time her synapses fired, they reminded her that she was hanging by her wrists, struggling to breathe, thinking it must have been the same way for Christ on his cross, wanting retribution when he returned. Craving vengeance. Because that was how it had seemed during the Holocaust. He'd ravaged the Earth like a man tormented by memories too agonizing to articulate. He'd stolen his precious few and rained down vengeance in his retreat like the earth was thirsty for it.

Then the beast had set loose his horsemen as though the earth had to pay the price of that vengeance, scouring it clean of any sense of divinity. Those days had been worse than the one when the god had come.

And here this one horseman hung next to her. Changed, he said. But no one needed to know that. He could recover. He could explain any of this away to his superiors. There was no need for him to die here for the sake of a spindly girl who was too foolish to let her power go dormant. She owed him that. She wanted to give him that.

She wanted to form words but they wouldn't come. Not until the door rattled open and a man stood in front of her, staring her down as though she was the one who had invited the god in the first place.

"I'm guilty," she mumbled.

She heard the intake of breath from next to her but ignored it. "I'm the one you're looking for."

"It's not me who's looking for you, love." The man stepped closer and she could see something beneath the stubble on his jaw that reminded her of wax mannequins and chaise lounges and the thrill of bliss hitting her tongue.

"Sasha," she muttered.

Sasha struck a pose. "In the flesh," he said.

She thought she heard Ezekiel croak out an order that sounded very much like a protest.

"Take me," she said. "Get Ezekiel safe and you can have me."

"You know what you're asking?" Sasha asked carefully.

She tried to nod but all she managed was a curt movement of her chin.

"We don't have much time. He's entered the den."

She nodded again and a thoughtful look streaked across Sasha's face that told Theda he'd already thought this out. He'd already made plans and was just hoping she'd play into them. It didn't matter. She'd made her decision.

Sasha twisted sideways, nodding to someone in the doorway. Theda wasn't surprised when she saw a bleeding Salima being led in by the horseman who had captured her in the apartment building. She couldn't imagine the amount of money Sasha must have paid him to betray his order. He sent Theda a twisted grin but didn't so much as look as Ezekiel as he unlocked Theda's restraints and let her collapse to the floor.

She caught Salima's sloe-eyed gaze and saw within its depths a craving so acute she understood immediately that the girl had been repeatedly fed godspit and then left to dry out until now. She must have fought them for a smear, bitten her own lip as she jonesed out. Theda's stomach twisted just thinking how miserable the girl must feel.

"Theda?"

She looked up at Ezekiel who was shaking his head at her vehemently. "Don't," he said.

She thought of his hands on her body, of the taste of him. She realized looking at his battered body that nothing would be the same. She wanted him to live. The pale rider, the man who lived to deliver death, trying to save a life. The least she could do was return the favor.

She struggled to a wobbly stand and leaned into Ezekiel, slipping her hands behind his neck, pulling him close. She whispered a kiss onto his earlobe, slipping her hands into his pocket. As she withdrew, she caught his green eyed gaze and held it, begging him not to speak.

"Use it," he croaked, and she knew he meant the smear. When she got a chance, she should slip into oblivion, avoid the agony of whatever the beast had in store for her. She placed her finger on his lips, shushing him.

"You are my addiction, remember?" she said.

"Not this way,
minou
." His eyes went glassy as he tried to keep his gaze locked on hers.

"How touching," Sasha said, his finger to his lips in a parody of a cherub's kiss.

Theda whirled on him. "Tell your man to release him," she said. "My life for his."

It was liberating, this feeling of offering salvation. Far more absolving then the tickle of godspit on her tongue. She felt giddy, almost euphoric.

She thought she heard Ezekiel groan aloud, but the sound was muted by the rattling of Salima's hands into the manacles, of Sasha complaining that they were taking too long, that the beast would find them stealing his treasure, that they had to get out while the getting was good.

As covertly as she could, Theda tottered close enough to Salima that she could catch her eye. She lifted her hand in a weak salute, twisting the palm forward just enough that the girl caught sight of the smear between her fingers. Theda's heart broke watching the excitement gleam in her eyes.

"Thank you," she said to the girl and leaned forward, aiming her ear for the lips that fumbled around a tongue working to speak.

"I want a do over," the girl whispered.

"I know," Theda said, placing trembling lips on the girl's cheek. As sneakily as she could she slipped the smear onto the girl's tongue. She didn't need to watch the girl succumb to know that the tingle had swept through the girl's palette and into her synapses. She knew the experience far too well to have to see it happen. She turned away from the girl who had played Cleopatra for the Councilman and yet survived. Theda faced Sasha, pointing to Ezekiel, knowing that even if Sasha realized Salima was blissed out, it wouldn't matter now.

"Do it," she said.

Sasha motioned for his companion to unhinge Ezekiel and the horseman fell to the floor in a heap where the soldier prodded him with his toe. At first, Ezekiel bolted to his feet, flying toward the soldier with his hands stretching for the man's throat. The soldier Tasered him almost casually, watching as Ezekiel's legs shot out straight and his mouth clicked shut.

The soldier kicked Ezekiel in the head before Theda could protest. "Out of it," the brute said, aiming his boot at Ezekiel's head.

"What kind of bargain do you make, Sasha," Theda said, afraid the soldier would inflict further harm. She wasn't sure how much more Ezekiel could take; his face already ballooned out at his cheekbones, the nose a disjointed twist of broken cartilage. "Keep your promise or I withdraw my offer."

"Get him out of here," Sasha said with a nod to the man. "I don't care how you do it."

Theda nodded mutely. There was a stickiness at the corner of her mouth that felt liquid and flaky at the same time. She touched it, stared at the pad of her index finger. Blood. Salima's blood.

A do over. That's what the girl wanted. It's what every addict wanted when they grew ashamed of their weakness: a do-over. So the girl had known she was going to die, that she was offering herself in Theda's place and that she was okay with it. Theda would see that her sacrifice wasn't wasted.

Without thinking about the consequences, she stuck her finger in her mouth.

Nothing. Not a single blip of vision, no wash of color to lead Theda to believe she was slipping into another time, another place, a life lived generations ago by the girl whose blood tingled in her mouth. Rather than relief, Theda felt fear. She'd tasted the lives of others for as long as she could remember. The ability to help them through it themselves, to find some meaning in the lives they lived before, that had come later with much training from her mother. But to not see anything now? That was more terrifying than the idea of facing the beast. Because if she saw no lives from before, then did it mean there were no lives to come? Did they mean that Salima would not get her do over?

Almost numbly, she followed Sasha from the room, leaving Ezekiel and the burly horseman behind to what she hoped was some sort of salvation. She didn't dare think about what might happen to him if Sasha decided not to keep his word. She had to trust the bounty hunter would be safe, that he'd find a way out when all was said and done. She had to believe he'd be OK because believing anything else would strip her of her resolve.

She threaded her way behind, watching Sasha's sultry hips sway this way and that until they were striding through the common room. All manner of activity strangely quieted as they made their way across its expanse and through to a smaller alcove with a handful of suited men standing about, drinking from champagne flutes.

In the corner waited an elaborate dais cloaked in shadow. Sasha closed the door behind them. Without turning to speak to her, he pressed a light switch on the wall, flooding the dais with a narrowed ray of silvery illumination.

Theda's heart went to her mouth. Chains lay in a puddle on the floor, attached to grommets protruding from the carpet. She had the eerie feeling she'd be chained there like Jessica Lange in
King Kong.

"Gentlemen," Sasha's throaty voice turned strangely baritone as he walked Theda to the dais. He made her stand directly beneath the light as his arms swept out beside him magnanimously as though he was offering some sort of gift. A waiflike spitter emerged from the shadows and looped a wide leather belt around Theda's waist, clicking it locked as the ends joined. Theda strained to test the restraint and felt sick when she couldn't move more than an inch to either side.

Sasha struck a pose for the audience. "How much am I bid for this young girl?"